


The Rise

by juelchenn



Category: The Fall (2006)
Genre: Father/Daughter Relationship, Roy has a family, they meet again
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-03
Updated: 2014-02-03
Packaged: 2018-01-11 02:13:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1167412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/juelchenn/pseuds/juelchenn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After years Roy and Alexandria meet in a cafe and talk.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Rise

**Author's Note:**

> This is my attempt at finding some closure the film did not give me.

There is a tree in the garden of the small house Roy calls home. It grows the biggest, juicest oranges he has ever seen now. _Now_ , he thinks, because when he first planted it, it didn’t look like it was going to become much. Tiny oranges, crippled and sour were all he got for the first few years. Yet he ate every one of them. To him they never were that sour anyways. Instead, they were sweet with memories.  
„Alexandria.“ The name has become his little prayer. When he says it he can see her next to him, feel her hands on his face, smell the faint scent of orange peel. It is the one word that can bring him happiness like no other. His little saving grace. The daughter he never had.  
He has a son now, though, and that little boy is running around in the backyard circling the orange tree. He is wearing a skirt made out of stripes of cloth that swirl around his little legs as he turns around trying to hit imaginary enemies with his wooden sword. Alexander, he called him and Alexander likes to pretend he is Alexander the Great and he loves to listen to stores about conquests and pirates, especially pirates. Nowadays pirate stories don’t come over Roy’s lips quite as easily. With a little one on his lap and that still so young voice begging at the top of his lungs it is hard to say no to anything, though. Over the years the Red Bandit has lived through many adventures, always with the help of the Black Bandit, who has not grown older. She doesn’t like the Red Bandit to go on ships, but she saves him when the ship sinks nevertheless. Maybe that is why Alexander’s Alexander the Great is more of an Alexander the Bandit.  
Roy decides to leave his son with his game. He has to run errands in town and wants to be back before too late to finish the Red Bandits latest adventure - he has to fight a dragon in order to save is daughter and an unknown boy. Alexander does not yet know that that boy will be him, the Roman Bandit. Before he leaves Roy takes the last one of the oranges to eat as lunch. His car is old, but it makes going to town fast and easy and Roy loves driving.  
When he is done running errands Roy decides to take a walk, past the park and the little cafes there. The sun is warm enough and it feels like a perfect day out here.  
That is when he sees her. All these people and yet no one stands out like her. She still has the same smile, her eyes look the same, even though he has to admit that she looks like a proper lady now with her cheeks slightly flushed, her lips in the same color. The still round face is framed by glossy curls and her dress is just a touch too short for him, but it is what the girls wear now.  
When he hears her order a coffee he has to smile. Maybe it is because he wants to hear the accent in her voice as a remembrance of the old days, but other than that it is smooth and perfectly American.  
All of a sudden there is that urge to talk to her, to get closure. Is she doing good? Has she been staying off trees and medicine cabinets, away from old men who send her to get their drugs? He certainly hopes she has, but he wants to make sure, so he steps forward, into her field of vision.  
„Alexandria? Is that you?“ he asks as he crosses the distance between himself and her table. „Do you remember me? Roy. We fell."  
„Of course I do. The Red Bandit,“ she laughs. „How could I forget?“ And she lifts her arm so it looks just like it did all those years ago when it was in a cast and she was still so young and not yet the beautiful lady she is today. There is the box, too. It looks small next to her now, used, with scratches, but it doesn’t fail to take him back to those days after the fall, before his rise.  
„It really is you, Alexandria the Great,“ he says and her chuckle sounds like a wind charm. It makes him smile, too, a smile that doesn’t seem to stop. He can never stop smiling, he thinks. Not with her so pretty and bubbly sitting there in the sun.  
Roy sits down and reaches into his bag. He pulls the orange out, the most beautiful orange he has ever seen on his tree, and he hands it to her. Now that he sees her he cannot keep it to himself.  
Alexandria chuckles again, takes it and smells it, her eyes closed for a few seconds until she opens them and looks at him. There is that same innocent look on her face she would put on in the hospital and it makes her look like the little girl he knew.  
„You know I didn’t throw them at the priest, Roy,“ she says into the orange, but the smile in her eyes is a dead giveaway.  
„Everyone knows you did, even the priest."  
Alexandria doesn’t deny it, instead she puts the orange on the table, next to the box and looks at him, just looks.  
„It is from the tree at my house,“ Roy starts explaining. „The last one this year.“  
Her fingertips graze the orange while she keeps watching him, then she smiles again as she takes it back and digs her thumb into it. Within an instant the air is filled with bittersweet orange smell. Roy can feel the orange juice drizzle on his hands.  
„We should share it.“ He watches her peel the orange with careful hands, making sure all of the white bits are gone. „So, Roy, what have you been up to?“  
He stays quiet for a moment. What has he been up to? Nothing much, really. So Roy tells her about his physical therapy after she left and how he got to become a stuntman again. Then she tells him how she, when she left the hospital tried to visit him but that she never made it. That she now works as a nurse and is engaged to a doctor. When she talks about her engagement Alexandria's face darkens.  
„What about..,“ she hesitates. „What about your heart..“ Alexandria touches her chest just above her heart and looks at him with nothing but compassion.  
„Oh, the heart,“ he simply says, but he feels a smile creep onto his face. „Broken things can be fixed, Alexandria. And I knew a girl who was exceptionally good at that.“  
She smiles and hands him half of the orange. „I heard Sinclair's marriage did not end well“, she says. „He fell, too.“  
Roy nods. He can remember it like it was just yesterday. Sinclair had started drinking and beating his wife. They were working on another movie then, Roy being the stuntman. When Sinclair had gotten out of hand she ran to see him. There were bruises all over her beautiful face, the lip bleeding. It had been a hard fall for both of them, his harder than hers because it ended in alcohol and Roy knows how final of a destination it can be.  
Now Sinclair had almost vanished, just like she had. Roy on the other hand had gotten job after job, a wife, a son. He bites into one of the orange slices. The juice is sweet in his mouth and lightens the mood. A look at Alexandria tells him that she thinks the same.  
„I always go to see the movies,“ she admits and bites into the last orange slice. „I watch them twice, three times sometimes. I have seen you in so many of them. Or..“ Alexandria hesitates and looks at him as if she is not sure wether or not what she is saying is the truth. „I think I do. You know, my mother says you do all the falling and hittng.“  
That last sentence makes Roy smile and Alexandria flush. „Darling,“ he says. „I don't fall much these days.“  
She laughs as if she realizes now how stupid she has been to believe that there was only Roy doing stunts, but he does’t believe he can ever think of her as anything like that. She was so smart and strong raising a broken man back up. For her, Roy thinks, he would have done all the stunts in the world. Every fall he would have taken to see that smile on her face.  
A man approaches the table and Roy can see Alexandria's smile change as she looks up to him and lifts her hand and waves.  
„That is him,“ she tells Roy. They are introduced and Roy has to admit he really is proud of her. Her fiancé is tall and handsome and he is wearing a tailored suit. His voice is soft when he talks to Alexandria and she looks at him as if she is seeing a god.  
„I forgot to ask you, Roy,“ Alexandria says after a few minutes of introductions and explanations as to who Roy is, but the fiancé seems to have heard of him aleready. „Are you married?“  
That is when Roy really starts talking. He tells her about Evelyn and Alexander who comes after the girl and man he is named after and Alexandria listens to him making little remarks and laughing along with his stories. When Roy is finished she is still smiling.  
„See,“ she says. „There is your happy ending.“  
„No,“ he says and smiles as he reaches for her hand and squeezes it lightly. „It is your story, too.“ Our happy ending.


End file.
